Connective tissue in a person may rupture or tear for various reasons, including trauma, and therefore need to be repaired. Numerous methods and materials for repairing soft tissue have been proposed. As used herein, “connective tissue”, generally refers to tendon and ligament.
Today, the most common methods of repairing torn, severed or otherwise damaged tendons involve approximating the severed ends of the tendons and suturing one side of the tendon to the other thereby returning the tendon to its natural position. A popular suture technique is the so-called Kessler technique and modifications thereof. Some of the other techniques include the Becker, Savage, lateral trap, double loop locking suture, four-strand interlock and variations of the Halsted technique.
Other current methods of tendon repair place prosthetic material either within or around the tendon or employ mechanical fasteners to the ends of the fasteners to reinforce the suture/tendon interface to provide a stronger repair. See e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,544; U.S. Pat. No. 6,080,192; U.S. Pat. No. 6,106,556, all of which are incorporated by reference herein as are all patents and published patent applications cited herein. However, these methods often may add bulk to the tendon which can result in problems with tendons that are in closely packed areas such as the hand.
Adhesives have also been proposed for tendon repair. See e.g. US Pub 2002/0161400. Similarly, photochemical treatments have been proposed. See e.g. US Pub 2002/0187935.
Various methods of placing a sleeve around the ends of the ruptured tendon have been proposed for acting as a support for suture. See e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,469,101; 5,147,400; 5,749,895; 5,897,591; 6,206,931; WO96/07355.
Alternatively, a method of placing a sleeve around the ends of the ruptured tendon has been proposed in which the sleeve has teeth thereon for attaching itself to the ends of the tendons. See e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 6,485,503; US Pub 2003/0069602; WO01/89392.
Finally, a method in which a metal insert is inserted into the ruptured ends of the tendon has been proposed. See e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,723,008; US Pub 2002/0161400.
In the art of ligament repair, the focus has been on the knee and in particular, the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL). See e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 6,616,694; U.S. Pat. No. 6,497,726; U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,744; U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,766; EP 278,713. Typically, that repair involved the complete replacement of the remaining connective tissue with a graft of either autologous tendon harvested from patellar ligament or some other graft material. The graft may have various forms of fixation at its ends, such as bone plugs, anchors, or eyelets for screws.
Finally, methods of rotator cuff and shoulder muscle repair have been proposed. See e.g. US Pub 2003/0212456; FR 2,810,877; FR 2,690,073; FR 2,638,349; FR 2,748,652.
However, none of these various proposals of connective tissue repair have found a wide following.
Accordingly, there is room for improvement within the art.